A Warm Welcome
by Lily Valley
Summary: Oneshot; this little piece of fiction follows as a girl reminisces on how her relationship with Tezuka grew through some of its more important landmarks. While she remembers, she awaits his return from a far-off tourney.


**Disclaimer:** I do not own the Prince of Tennis. It belongs to Konomi Takeshi, as do all the characters. =)

Hope you enjoy, and please review!

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"_Welcome to Seishun Academy. It's nice to meet you."_

I'd often thought back on those words when I came to milestones in my relationship with the boy who'd spoken them. It was less than four years ago when he said those words to me, and we'd both come so far. He's already started his professional tennis career, and I'm well on my way to publishing my first novel while I study literature in university. After a year and a half of nearly constant contact, this separation has proven difficult. Competitions take him far away, and I'm left doing book reports and impatiently awaiting his return. It doesn't seem fair, but we both know he'd take me with him if I could go.

Instead, I sit at home and look at photo albums when I don't have any studying to occupy my time. Most of the few friends I have chose to study abroad or skip out on university altogether. Only a few, such as my best friend, Yori, are still around, but even they are swamped with classes and work. It doesn't really bother me, though. I've always been good at occupying myself. In fact, that's one of the first things he noticed about me.

"_What are you doing?" a puzzled voice asked, startling me out of my concentrated reverie. I dropped the group of thread I'd been braiding together. _

"_U-um…I w-was braiding th-thread. I-it's a fun w-way to w-waste time while I wait for m-my brother." I was still a third year in junior high, so I still stuttered when dealing with anyone outside of my family. That was something I didn't grow out of until sometime in high school. _

_My response was met with the silence I'd come to expect after two months in the same class as Tezuka Kunimitsu. If I hadn't been sitting in a dark classroom hours after classes ended, he probably wouldn't have bothered to ask at all. As it was, I must've been a strange sight in that dark room, idly braiding threads together as I waited for club activities to end so that my younger brother and I could walk home together. _

_I was expecting him to leave and head on to whatever had taken him away from his duties as the captain of the all-important tennis club, but he surprised me for the first of a great many times. He stepped into the room, picking up my temporarily forgotten threads and setting them on the desk I'd been sitting at. He flicked the light on when he reached the door again, saying, "Your eyes will weaken if you continue to work in the dark." Then he slid the door shut and I heard his footsteps proceed down the hall. I sat stunned for many minutes before picking up my project and beginning to braid again. It seemed foolish to let his momentary interest go to waste. _

He calls whenever he can, which is disappointingly infrequently. He called last night, just before I went to bed.

"Moshi moshi."

"…Hi."

From there, the conversation became increasingly mushy and sweet, until I caught some of the things being said in his background. He'd already told me he was at an airport, but I hadn't realized he was awaiting the arrival of another flight before leaving. When I heard a chorus of 'Welcome to England!' during a lull in our conversation, I realized he'd have to go soon.

"You should go," I said softly.

"I don't have to."

"It's okay. Just come home soon, okay?"

"As soon as I can." We hung up at the same time, and I was reminded of our first conversation held over the phone.

I'm told he politely told my mother he was a classmate and asked if I was available. My little sister was sent to fetch me, and I came hesitantly to the phone.

"_Tezuka-san?" Being in my own home was the only solution to my stuttering problem back then. _

"…_You forgot a notebook in the English classroom earlier. I picked it up so it wouldn't get lost. Do you need it back today?" he asked._

_I thought for a moment. I hadn't noticed a missing notebook. "What color is it?"_

"_Blue."_

_My physics notebook. Luckily, I didn't have physics homework that night. "It's fine if you keep it until tomorrow, then. You can just give it to me in homeroom, if you like."_

"_Okay then. I'll remember."_

"_Ja." He hung up after I said that, which suited his personality. It would be a long time before I realized that receiving that phone call set me apart from the vast majority of girls at school._

I was too shy and timid in junior high to give the idea of romance a second's thought. That all changed when Yori suggested I join the creative writing club in high school. I'd never tried to publish any of my writing before, but Yori had read some of my poems and thought I was good enough to at least enter a few competitions.

I selected my favorite piece of writing (a series of haiku poems that formed a long narrative poem) and submitted it to the club to see if they'd be interested in taking me on as a member. I wasn't expecting any reaction, so I was very surprised when one of the members found me and practically begged me to join the club. It wasn't long before one of the writing coaches was asking me to contribute to a showcase that would be submitted in a contest against other schools. The winning school would have its compilation published in a highly publicized book. Our school's prompt was 'a person.' One of the coaches asked me to write in prose and not use names. Then he told me my personal prompt was 'tennis.' Looking back, I think he might've been plotting something. The next few days were very interesting for both Kunimitsu and I.

"_Tezuka-san? Would you mind if I came and watched you practice after school today? I know you're leaving the campus, but I have a project I might need your help with, and it involves tennis._" _Fortunately, my stuttering problem disappeared sometime before then. Unfortunately, it was replaced by a tendency to ramble when I was nervous._

"…_Okay. I don't mind."_

"_Thank you so much! Meet outside the school gates after classes?" I asked while bowing deeply to emphasize my gratitude._

"_Sure."_

_Later, while I was talking to Yori at lunch, I decided Tezuka was just so calm and unreadable that he could fluster anyone. Yori decided I had a crush on him. Needless to say, I was not pleased with the blush that covered my face at the idea._

_After classes, my writing coach held me back, not realizing that my anxious fidgeting was due to a need to leave, so I was about ten minutes late when I reached the gate. _

"_Sorry! My writing coach had to talk to me about something, so I'm late. Did you wait long?"_

"_No. It's okay," he said before turning and walking away. We walked quite a few blocks in silence before he glanced at me and asked, "Are you a member of the journalism club?"_

_I wrinkled my nose. "No, creative writing. Even if I was interested in journalism, I wouldn't join the club. All the members I know of are just boy-crazy gossips."_

_He gave me the strangest look, and I couldn't figure out what for. He looked kind of shocked, a little confused, and almost curious. _

"_What?" I asked, but he just shook his head._

"_It's nothing. We're here." He nodded at the building in front of us, and I saw he was right. He found a cage with a pitching machine, and I stood outside with my clipboard._

"_Will it bother you if I ask questions while you practice?" I asked him, watching as he put coins into the machine and got ready. He just shook his head._

"_Okay. I won't ask anything personal or intrusive. I just need to make sure I understand the way the game works." For a moment, I just watched him practice. I wondered idly if it was possible to describe the fluidity of his motion or the way his muscles moved. Once I realized what I was thinking, I frantically searched for something, anything, to ask him. _

"_How many games do you have to win in order to win a set?" I blurted. Yori had assured me earlier that it was a good question for two reasons. First, because the number of games seemed to vary and someone who had never played before couldn't be expected to understand. Second, she'd pointed out that most girls (particularly Tezuka's fan girls) didn't even know the difference between a game and a set._

"_Six, unless the other person wins five. Then you have to win seven."_

"_What happens if you both win six games?" I asked with genuine curiosity. To be honest, I'd never played or watched tennis before. The thought of interacting with a crowd or an opponent had downright terrified me. _

"_Then the players begin a tiebreak. Whoever wins that wins the set."_

"_I see." For the next hour, I asked him questions even a beginner probably could've answered. As time passed, his answers became more in-depth and he interacted with me more. He was still the stoic, quiet Tezuka that everyone knew in school, but he became less intimidating and proved to be an able conversationalist by the end of the afternoon. I arrived home with an extensive knowledge of the basic rules and procedures of tennis, an almost complete writing club project, and quite a few pages of doodles that involved Tezuka's name and hearts. I burned those before Yori came over for our weekly study session, just to avoid her teasing. I proofread my project and sent the final draft to one of the writing coaches before going to bed that night._

_I'll never forget the next day. I arrived at school early to see what the writing coaches had to say about my project. The evaluation was great, and I was told my entry would probably rank higher than some of the seniors. Embarrassingly, they all seemed to know I'd asked Tezuka for help, and they said I'd better offer him a copy, since he'd played a big part in the whole thing. I didn't understand what they meant by saying that, but giving him a copy seemed like the right thing to do._

_I found him during lunch, but he was with the tennis team's regulars, so I was too shy to just go up and talk to him. Somehow, he seemed to notice that I wanted to talk to him, so he came over to me. _

"_Do you need something?" he asked, not unkindly._

"_I was just wondering if you'd like a copy of the story you helped me with yesterday. My writing coach said it would be polite to offer. I can have a copy ready by the time you're done with tennis practice, if you want. But if you don't, that's okay too." I was rambling. What was worse, I was __**blushing**__. I couldn't help it, though. He only had time to nod before the bell signaling the end of break rang and we had to separate. I wasn't sure, but I assumed he meant he wanted a copy. _

_I found myself just outside the school gate, waiting for tennis practice to end. I was in quite a sticky spot. Apparently, the president of Tezuka's fan club saw me talking to him at lunch, and she wasn't pleased. She'd gathered the entire school's population of Tezuka-crazed girls, and they all surrounded me. They were shouting too many things at once for me to understand, and they kept pressing closer and closer. I suppose they were saying things about 'their' Tezuka or something. All I really remember is being horror-struck and crouching down fearfully with my arms over my head._

_By the time Tezuka got there, they'd already tried to kick me a few times, but hadn't managed to actually hurt me. I felt him before I saw him, since I still had my head covered, but I knew he was there either way. _

"_What do you think you're doing?" he asked the others with the barest trace of anger in his voice._

"_T-Tezuka-sama! W-we were…we were…" They were so shocked that they couldn't even speak. I looked up hesitantly to see them turn and run away without answering his question._

_He offered me a hand up once they were all gone, and I took it, unintentionally holding on for longer than necessary. I would've noticed, had he pointed it out, but we just stood there in silence for a few seconds._

"_Are you alright?" he finally asked, still not making a move to disconnect our hands._

"_Yeah, I'm fine," I said softly, "they kicked me a couple of times, but no major harm done." I don't think he meant to do it, but his grip tightened and that's when we both noticed we were still holding hands. Immediately, we both let go and I blushed. He himself probably would've as well, had he been anyone else. _

"_Okay. Should I walk you home? They might be waiting for me to leave." The thought terrified me, and apparently he took the look on my face as a 'yes,' since he gave me a kind of half-smile that shocked me out of my fearful thoughts and asked, "Which way to your house?"_

"_L-left," I answered, wondering absently in the back of my head if my stuttering problem was coming back._

_And so we walked. My house was only about six blocks from the school, but I didn't want the walk to end. Yori would tease me endlessly for weeks over it, but I decided to ask him if we could cut through a park at about the halfway mark, claiming it was a 'shortcut.' Turns out it was worth it, because it gave me the time I needed to work up an amount of courage even my own family would've doubted I was capable of. I'm not sure why, but I felt it was important to overcome my hesitance and shyness, just this once. _

_When we reached my house, I paused before opening the gate. "Oh! I completely forgot because of all that stuff that happened! Here…" I trailed off as I handed him the copy of my story I'd made for him. He looked confused before his face smoothed out with understanding. _

"_Thank you."_

"_Oh, and Tezuka-san?" He looked up and I quickly reached forward to kiss his cheek. "Thanks."_

_Judging by the dumbstruck look on his face, I figured I could just turn around and go inside without expecting any reply, but that was okay. At least he wasn't looking at me like I was some repulsive __**thing**__._

That afternoon had been the very beginning of a lot of things. It cued the beginning of him sitting with Yori and myself at lunch, as well as me attending his practices. The fan girls weren't happy, but it's not like they could do anything about it. Every time they would try to corner me, he'd show up and make them leave. I didn't cower anymore when they found me. I just stood calmly, not saying anything as I waited for the hand on my shoulder or the arm around my waist that we all knew was coming. After awhile, they stopped trying.

Aside from the fan girls, everyone seemed happy for the both of us. They were definitely shocked, but they didn't disapprove. And so we progressed through high school _together_. We were perfect study buddies, since he was skilled with math and science while I was great at English, classics, and the like. Between the two of us, we could sort out any problem we were having. Also, we both were the leaders of our respective clubs. Obviously, he became tennis captain again. The creative writing club never really had a clear-cut _leader_, but I was the one the other members came to when they needed someone to read over their work and check for mistakes and weak points in their writing. Soon, even the writing coaches were asking for my help with some of the finer aspects of the writing.

The day after graduation, Kunimitsu and I had to have the talk that neither of us was looking forward to. Neither of us doubted for a second that we'd stay together. We both knew we wouldn't have our lives any other way. The problem lay with our careers. I would need to go to university for anyone to take me seriously in the writing world, while he would have to travel as a professional tennis player. We both sat down that day and discussed all our fears and worries (mine were much more numerous than his), and reassured each other as best we could. By the end of the talk, we both felt better about what was to come, though we still dreaded what it would mean.

I found an apartment near the university I would be attending at the end of the summer. Kunimitsu had already traveled to various tourneys, but I knew the separation would be worse when I was out on my own, so I'd put that off for as long as possible. Finally, the time came when he had to leave again. I saw him off at the airport and took the train back home. As much as I hated to be alone on the first night, I knew it would be harder every night after that if I broke and stayed with a friend or my family. I don't think I slept that first night. Instead, I stared at the ceiling until I couldn't take it, closed my eyes for a few minutes, glanced at the clock, and returned my gaze to the ceiling. Even going to sleep seemed to be impossible.

Now, it's almost time for him to return, and I'm sitting on the couch in my apartment, waiting for him to call or knock or something. He doesn't bother, he walks right in instead. I don't turn around…I can't. The idea that I might just be imagining this, even though I'm sure I'm not, is just too strong. That is, until he wraps his arms around my shoulders and rests his head on mine.

"I'm home."

"Welcome back.

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**A/N:** This took me forever, but I'm extremely happy with it. It feels good to write in normal prose. Oh, and I'd like to say I'm rather pleased that I wrote a whole oneshot about Tezuka without using the phrase 'Don't let your guard down' once! Although I was tempted in a few places, I'll admit. =)

Oh yeah, and I wouldn't expect the next one before next Tuesday, if I even have it done then. But it will come, I promise!


End file.
